


Isn't Supposed to Be

by Erin87



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Kid Fic, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-09 09:57:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7797358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erin87/pseuds/Erin87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When two teenagers show up in the gateroom and make an astonishing claim, John finds everything he knows at risk of changing. Set in S5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Surprises

**Author's Note:**

> I'd originally posted this on ff.net, but I'm posting it here too, as well as making some slight edits. Hope you enjoy!

Prologue: Surprises

  
“Hey Sheppard, wait up.” John stopped walking and turned to see Ronon Dex jogging to catch up with him. When the Satedan drew level with his friend he nodded and they continued on down the hallway together. “You going for lunch?”  
  
“Yeah,” replied John. “I think it’s some kind of macaroni thing today.”  
  
“Is it anything like that pasta salad stuff they had last week?”  
  
“I hope not,” said Rodney fervently, exiting one of the labs just before the two of them passed by and jumping into the conversation. “Now I’m normally not that picky about what I eat, but that stuff was…” He shuddered and shook his head before fixing his attention on the data tablet in his hands, as he walked rapidly tapping away at some nearly incomprehensible readings on the minutia of Atlantis’s power consumption.  
  
“Yeah, it was pretty bad,” agreed John.  
  
“More like inedible,” commented Rodney, not looking up from his work.  
  
“Hey,” said Ronon, “it still wasn’t as bad as that time with the roast…”  
  
John groaned. “Can we please not talk about that? I’m about to eat here!”  
  
Rodney finally looked up, a smile spreading across his face. “Oh yeah, I remember that! So many people got sick that Elizabeth had to make the kitchen staff swear never to make it again.”  
  
John felt his face freeze at the mention of Elizabeth Weir, the only outward sign of the sharp stab of loss that ran through him each time he heard her name – each time he was forced into a reminder that she was no longer there. But he quickly schooled his face into a more normal expression, and the episode passed unnoticed by his teammates.  
  
Rodney and Ronon continued to reminisce about disastrous menus of lunchtimes past, but John found he had a little difficulty investing in the conversation again. He remembered that incident with the kitchen staff too. As far as the science of cooking went, it had been a failed experiment of the worst kind. John had supposed that was what they got for assembling a team of the best and brightest minds in two galaxies – people who liked to serve prototypes for dinner instead of an actual meal. It had taken Elizabeth at least an hour and a half of constant negotiating to get the chefs to agree never to create the dish again, but by the end of that time she’d had them practically – no pun intended – eating out of the palm of her hand. John smiled faintly at the memory: the head cook, who had put up a great deal of fuss in defense of his creation in the beginning, promising to burn the recipe and make her a dozen different desserts in penance, and Elizabeth, simply smiling with discreet satisfaction in her green eyes and thanking the man politely. She’d had that way with people.  
  
The three men reached the cafeteria. The room was busy and bright. Midday sun poured through the large floor to ceiling stained-glass windows, and people were sitting at the tables talking with each other or chatting as they stood in line to get their food.  
  
Rodney gave a small wave as he spotted Jennifer Keller across the room and smiled as he went to join her, leaving his friends without a word.

“Yeah, bye to you too, Rodney!” John called after him. No answer. He and Ronon exchanged a look and moved over to the line.  
  
John picked up a tray from the stack and reached for a bottle of water, but froze as the liquid started shaking inside the plastic. The tremor only lasted for a few seconds and then everything was still again. He wasn’t the only one who noticed. People had just begun to whisper fearfully about earthquakes when John’s radio crackled into life, Richard Woolsey’s voice issuing from the headset. “Colonel Sheppard, please report to the gate room immediately!”  
  
He glanced at Ronon, who was watching him with a frown, and laid his tray back on top of the pile as he reached up to tap his earpiece. “On my way.” He turned and sprinted out of the cafeteria, Ronon on his heels.  
  
-o-  
  
When they reached the gate room it still wasn’t immediately clear what was going on. All John could see as he sprang up the steps onto the main floor were the backs of heavily armed Marines aiming their weapons at something. From beyond the line an unfamiliar male voice was speaking out. “…some kind of mistake!”  
  
Ronon following close behind him, John peered through the gap between two Marines to get his first glimpse of what was causing all the commotion. What he saw definitely wasn’t what he had been expecting. Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, stood in the center of the ring of soldiers, their hands held in the air in surrender. They were both good looking kids, alike enough to be brother and sister, with maybe a couple of years’ difference in their ages. But their attire was what struck him as most odd. They were both wearing uniforms similar in design to the expedition’s, but the colored panels were in the wrong places, almost like the person who had made them had heard a basic description of the uniforms but hadn’t bothered to get all the details right. And yet even stranger than their clothing was the sense of inexplicable familiarity that tugged at the back of John’s mind… There was something about them... something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.  
  
Mr. Woolsey was standing inside the circle, facing their mysterious visitors with a stern look of command on his face. “A mistake, really? I think the mistake was yours, for intruding on–”  
  
“We’re not intruders!” interrupted the boy angrily.  
  
“Listen,” pleaded the girl, a dark curl of hair escaping her ponytail and falling around her face, “this is just a misunderstanding. Let us talk to our mom, please…”  
  
Woolsey glared at them. “And just who is your mother? For that matter, who are you?”  
  
In that moment, John realized why the girl looked so familiar. A strange knotted feeling developed in the pit of his stomach and he knew what her answer to the first question would be before she even opened her mouth. But how…?  
  
The girl gave a frustrated sigh, her green eyes scanning the crowd. “Look, this is ridiculous! You know us! You know our mom!”

"Lieutenant," said John, tapping the Marine on the shoulder so he could get by. He had to question her himself, had to know how this was possible.

“Her name is Elizabeth…” The girl’s eyes landed on John as he stepped into the ring of guards and her face lit up with a relieved expression. “Finally! There’s something very weird going on here. Dad, tell them who we are!”  
  
John froze as every head in the room snapped towards him in shock. Woolsey looked as if he were about to have a stroke. John’s head reeled and the knotted feeling in his stomach grew ten times worse. Surely he'd heard wrong. This was some kind of joke. _Dad?_


	2. Chapter 1: Shock and Awe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing the edits from the ff.net version. :)

John stared at the girl standing in front of him. “I’m sorry… _What_ did you just call me?”  
  
“Dad, come on, this isn’t funny,” said the boy seriously.  
  
Another jolt to John’s nervous system. They _both_ thought he was their father? Guess that confirmed the sibling idea. “Look,” he said slowly, holding out a hand placatingly, “I don’t know who you are, but–”  
  
Confusion entered the girl’s eyes. “Dad, stop it. You’re scaring me,” she said, the exasperation in her voice replaced by real fear. John couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy; though obviously delusional, she couldn’t be more than seventeen.  
  
Her wary green eyes jumped from John to Woolsey to the Marines and back again. “What’s going on?”  
  
“That is precisely what I’d like to know!” demanded Woolsey, recovering finally from his shock at the girl’s claim of descent. “Colonel Sheppard, what is the meaning of this?”  
  
“What, you think _I_ have something to do with it?” asked John in disbelief.  
  
“These individuals are claiming to be your children, what else am I–”  
  
“Hey,” interrupted Ronon, passing through the line of armed Marines to stand at John’s side. “Unless you want the whole city to know about this in the next five minutes, you might want to move this somewhere else.” He nodded behind him. There was already an audience gathering at the fringes of the gate room – who knew how much they had heard?    
  
Out of the corner of his eye, John saw the boy – who was intently watching him – place a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Emily…” he said softly. (A name, finally!) The girl looked up at her brother, who nodded his head towards John. “Look at him.”  
  
After shooting the boy a questioning glance, she did as he’d instructed. After a moment her eyes widened in understanding, her lips parting slightly in surprise.  
  
John didn’t know what was so astonishing about his appearance, but once again he was struck by the resemblance between the girl and the woman she had started to name as her mother: Elizabeth. It was only in that moment, as the initial haze of shock cleared, that the puzzle pieces clicked and John realized the full meaning of what the girl – Emily, he reminded himself – was implying. He swallowed deeply, the fast becoming familiar knot in his stomach giving another sharp twist. According to her, he and Elizabeth… Oh, he didn’t like to think about what Woolsey was going to say once he noticed _that_ little detail.  
  
Woolsey spoke and John flinched, certain for one paranoid moment that he’d been reading his mind. But the other man was only agreeing with Ronon. “You’re right,” Woolsey said, nodding. “Sergeant, escort these two to a holding cell. We’ll continue this discussion downstairs.”  
  
The two teenagers allowed themselves to be led away without resistance, Emily staring at John as long as she could. As they were marched past him, John was just able to catch her awed whisper. “His hair... there’s no gray.”

  
-o-

  
On the way down to the holding cell, the group ran into a concerned looking Rodney McKay, who was hurrying towards the gate room. “Hey, what’s going on?!” he demanded, falling into step next to John. “What was that tremor a minute ago? Underwater earthquake?”    
  
“Not exactly,” answered John flatly.  
  
“Well what–” Rodney finally looked around at the small party marching down the hallway and broke off mid-sentence. “Who are they?” He pointed at the pair of teenagers partially concealed in the midst of the Marine escort.  
  
Woolsey looked at the scientist. “That, Dr. McKay, is exactly what I hope to find out. The tremor was caused by the gate, not an earthquake. There was an unscheduled off-world activation not fifteen minutes ago from somewhere in Pegasus; those children were what came through. And they’ve made some rather fantastic claims that I intend to get to the bottom of.”  
  
Rodney frowned. “Oh? Like what?”  
  
“They um…” John bit his lip and sighed. He was never going to hear the end of this, not with as many times as Rodney had called him a Kirk in the past. “They’re saying that I’m their father.”  
  
“What? You’re kidding!”  
  
John gave him a look.  
  
Rodney cleared his throat and looked away. “Okaaay, not kidding then. But hey, are we really surprised…?”  
  
“McKay!” John growled.  
  
Rodney ignored the warning in his friend’s voice and tried to peer over the shoulders of the Marines in front of them to get a better glimpse of the prisoners. “…it’s only to be expec– wait, they’re teenagers. And you said that they came from Pegasus. Then that’s…”  
  
“Impossible. Yeah, I know.” John looked ahead at the swinging ponytail of dark curls just visible over Sergeant Matthew’s shoulder. _‘And you have no idea by just how much.’_

  
-o-

  
The holding room was lit momentarily by a flash of blue light as the force field snapped into place around the wide horizontal bars of the cell, effectively sealing the ‘visitors’ inside. As John and the others fanned out along the side of the cell, the girl crossed her arms and glanced around her, sighing tiredly. “This isn’t necessary,” she said. “You don’t have to lock us up, we’re not a threat.”  
  
“You’ll allow me to be the judge of that,” said Woolsey.  
  
The boy – John still didn’t know his name – stopped pacing back and forth and came to stand beside his sister, his hands in his pockets. John noticed how they had both been careful to stay away from the walls of the cell once it had activated, unlike most of the prisoners that had been kept there, all of whom had gotten a shock or two before learning not to touch. There was a familiarity in their attitude towards the technology surrounding them that John found almost… unnerving. There had been no surprise, no awe or exclamations of wonder as they had been led through the city. Although he was reluctant to do it, John had to admit that they acted as if… well, as if they had lived in Atlantis all their lives. For a split second he found himself wondering whether they had the ATA gene or not, whether they had inherited it from… He quickly stopped himself from following that train of thought any further. ‘ _What is the matter with you, John?! These_ cannot _be your kids!’_  
  
“I remember you now,” said the boy slowly as he gave Woolsey an appraising look. “Richard Woolsey… You’re that guy from the IOA that used to give Mom so much trouble.” The boy raised an eyebrow at the man in front of him and John was suddenly aware that Emily wasn’t the only one to bear resemblance to Elizabeth. “What are _you_ doing here?”  
  
Woolsey stiffened at the incredulity in the boy’s tone. “From now on I will be the one asking questions here. Now, you have some explaining to do and I suggest you get started.”  
  
The boy sighed, his eyes sliding to the floor before he exchanged a look with his sister. Then he took a deep breath and fixed his eyes, not on Woolsey, but on John.  
  
 “My name is Connor Evan James Sheppard. I’m seventeen years old. This is my little sister Emily. We were both born here, on Atlantis. Our father is Colonel John Sheppard, US Air Force, and our mother is Dr. Elizabeth Sheppard.”  
  
“I’m not familiar with–” began Woolsey and John braced himself.  
  
Still not looking at Woolsey, Connor – at last he had a name! – smoothly explained. “She was Elizabeth Weir before she married our dad.”  
  
John inhaled sharply. There it was, like a punch to the gut. And he’d known it was coming. Beside him, John heard Rodney give a startled ‘What!?!’ and start choking and sputtering. Other murmurs of surprise flittered around the room, but John didn’t take his eyes off of the young man in the cell, who returned his gaze with an unwavering seriousness. John bit at his lip, insides twisting at having it all laid out in front of him so bluntly. He and Elizabeth. Married. That was... that was so…  
  
Connor finally turned his attention to Woolsey, his voice taking on a heavily sarcastic edge. “I also hate broccoli, got my tonsils out when I was twelve, and had a pet rabbit named Fluffy. Anything else you wanna know?”  
  
Surprised, John quickly bit the side of his mouth to keep from smirking. He couldn’t help it; he was starting to like this kid. Connor saw the suppressed grin and the corner of the boy’s mouth lifted in a faint smile as he caught John’s eyes for a brief second. The sarcasm blew right by Woolsey. He was still stuck on the previous bit of information.  
  
“What?” said Woolsey in bewilderment. “Did you say your mother was Dr. Elizabeth Weir? The former leader of this expedition?”  
  
“Our mom _is_ Elizabeth Weir,” spoke up Emily, an edge to her voice as she stressed the present tense. “And she’s not the former leader. She and Dad run the city together just like they have since they first came here from Earth. Or at least…” She shared a glance with her brother, brow becoming furrowed in confusion as she looked to him for confirmation. “They will...”  
  
John heard the unspoken ‘I think’ that came after her uncertain last statement. Then for the second time in less than an hour he found himself being struck by something this mysterious girl was suggesting. Well that explained a lot.  
  
“Whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute,” began Rodney, stepping closer to the bars, arms crossed over his chest and that familiar look of scientific interest dawning on his face, “are you saying you’re from the _future_?”  
  
“I… we don’t…” Emily faltered and looked at Connor beseechingly.  
  
The boy sighed and ran a hand through short wavy brown hair, studying the dull gray of the floor before looking back up at the gathered adults, one hand hooked around the back of his neck. “It kinda looks that way.”

  
-o-

  
_Two Days Ago… Eighteen Years Later_  
  
Emily Sheppard closed her eyes, a smile spreading across her face as the sharp wind blew, whipping her hair up over her head. It was cold, but then it often was at this height, especially at night. She didn’t mind; she’d long ago learned to bring a coat when she was up here.  
  
The gust faded and died and Emily opened her eyes to deep blue velvet scattered with diamonds. The night air was perfectly clear, and each point of gently pulsing light was razor sharp in its clarity. The sky was swirled with every shade of blue from deepest indigo - almost violet - to dark teal. And faded even farther into the background, its stars little more than a glittering blur as it arched overhead, was the sweeping expanse of the arm of the galaxy. Emily tucked her legs in against her chest and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees as she stared up. She had seen the night sky on Earth several times before during her family’s occasional visits, but it had been nothing… _nothing_ compared to this.  
  
She had just settled herself farther into her perch among the beams when a familiar voice sounded from indoors. “Hey Emily, are you in here?”  
  
“No,” she called back, “out here!”  
  
Footsteps drew closer and then Rachel McKay appeared on the balcony below, her dark blonde hair shining with the light pouring out of the open door behind her. Rachel’s eyes flashed back and forth in a cursory glance of the balcony, but she almost immediately focused her attention higher, easily finding Emily among the shadows as she sat nestled in her hiding place between two support beams. “Hey.”  
  
“Hey.”  
  
Rachel casually placed her hands on her hips as she looked up at her friend. “You know, your dad would have a fit if he saw you up there.”  
  
“Yeah, I know,” said Emily brightly. “He did last time anyway.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s because he knows just how far the fall is.” Rachel peered over the balcony railing with distaste. “So do I. Is the view really that different from up there?”  
  
Emily gazed out and up at the star strewn splendor. “Oh, it’s worth it. Trust me.” She looked down at Rachel, who had been her best friend for her entire life (even if she might not always admit it). “I know, I know” she said quickly with a smile, stopping Rachel from opening her mouth any further, “you’ll take my word for it.”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“So… what’s going on?”  
  
“I was just passing by the control room and happened to casually overhear some of the goings on. Not much, of course, at this hour, but still... One of the teams just checked in. They found something. I figured you’d want–”  
  
“Why didn’t you say that to begin with!?” cried Emily. She unfolded herself from her hiding spot, swinging her legs over the edge of the beam she was sitting on and reaching over to grasp the raised panel on the wall near her. Quick as a flash, and with the ease of long practice, she scaled down the wall to the balcony floor ten feet below, using the grooved decorative paneling as a ladder. Jumping the last foot to the ground, she turned to Rachel and dusted her hands off on the legs of her jeans. “What do you think my chances are?” she asked nervously.  
  
“I’d say they’re pretty good. At least... 65:35?"  
  
Emily nodded as the two of them began walking briskly towards the door. “Okay, I’ll take that.”  
  
One transporter ride and a three minute walk later, Emily hopped up the steps into the gate room, the vaulted ceiling stretching far above her head and the colors in the shining stained glass dull with the darkness outside. The main floor was empty – it was always pretty quiet in this part of the tower at night – so Emily, with Rachel close behind, turned and sprinted up the main staircase, their heels lit up by the perpetually glowing characters of the Ancient welcome set into the steps. They were almost to the top when they met Chuck Campbell coming down. Good, thought Emily. Just the person – or at least one of them anyway - she needed to see. Chuck had often been roped into babysitting duty when she and her older brother were little, and had been one of their strongest allies and co-conspirators when it came to the procuring of chocolate cookies after bedtime. Since then he had retained the position of a kind of fun uncle.  
  
“Hey girls,” he greeted cheerfully. “You know you’re not supposed to be in here.”  
  
“We know,” said Emily, pausing with one foot on the step in front of her. “Balcony or office?”  
  
Chuck smiled, shaking his head. “Office. Although I might wait a bit before going in.” He jerked at thumb towards the glass-walled space that stood off to one side of the control room and winked. “It needs some smoothing out, but I think you’ve got a decent shot this time, Em.”  
  
Emily returned the smile. “That’s what I hear.”  
  
She glanced up in the direction Chuck had indicated. As expected, she saw both of her parents sitting inside her mother’s office. Her father, the wildness of his hair clearly visible even from all the way over on the stairs, was sitting on the edge of the desk next to his wife’s chair. The two of them seemed to be deep in some sort of discussion. Emily bit her lip. That didn’t look so good. What were the chances that that discussion wasn’t about her?  
  
“Good luck,” said Chuck.  
  
Emily looked back at the sandy haired technician and gave a quick smile, a little nervous now. “Thanks.”  
  
Chuck nodded and then continued on his way down the stairs. When Emily didn’t move at that exact second, Rachel, two steps below, let out an irritated sigh and made shooing motions with her hands.  
  
“Well, go on!”  
  
Well accustomed to Miss McKay’s often impatient nature, Emily just rolled her eyes and continued walking. Crossing the control room, she waved at the brown eyed woman sitting behind the console. Amelia Dex, affectionately known as Ms. Amelia, smiled warmly and waved back, crossing her fingers at her and mouthing the words ‘good luck’ as she passed by.  
  
Emily returned the smile but mentally grimaced. Was it really that obvious what she was here for? Or maybe they just knew her too well... Halfway across the walkway that linked the office to the control room, Emily slowed and stopped, quietly motioning with her hand for Rachel to do the same as she strained her ears to catch the voices drifting out of the room in front of them. Emily felt her heart sink into the familiar wash of disappointment at the heated tone of an argument. Obviously the others had been a little over-optimistic about her chances.   
  
“…not old enough.”  
  
 “John,” reasoned her mother, “it’s not like she’s never been off world before. She’s tagged along with both of us and Ronon and Rodney and Teyla dozens of times.”  
  
“Exactly. She’s gone with me or one of us. I won’t be there this time. What if something goes wrong?” John demanded.  
  
“Then a whole team will be there to look out for her. It’s not like we’re sending her off alone! And this is an uninhabited planet with no signs of anything unusually dangerous.” Elizabeth’s tone grew softer and Emily, praying she wouldn’t be noticed, had to take a couple of steps forward to hear what she was saying, hope rising cautiously within her. If her mom was on her side then it couldn’t be a completely lost cause.  
  
“I understand where you’re coming from,” her mother continued. “Believe me I don’t want to let her go as much as you do. But Connor went on his first mission when he was fifteen too.”  
  
“He was closer to sixteen,” corrected John. “And that was more of an accident.”  
  
Elizabeth let out half a laugh. “Still,” she sighed, serious again. “We didn’t really give ourselves any room to say no to Emily once she reached that age.”  
  
John sighed. “And now she has.”  
  
Just visible over her father’s shoulder, Emily saw her mother nod her head, the soft light from the Ancient fixtures highlighting the few strands of silver in her brown curls. “Now she has.”   
  
Silence fell in the office and judging by the angle of her dad’s head, Emily guessed that her parents were sharing one of their long looks. She glanced at Rachel and began to take silent steps forward, deciding that now was a decent time to join the conversation, but still ready to stop if they started saying anything more of interest.  
  
A second later John sighed again and she froze. “I don’t suppose we could just keep her locked up in the tower until she’s thirty?”  
  
Elizabeth laughed. “Do you really think it would hold her for very long?”  
  
John chuckled. “No, I guess not.”   
  
Suddenly, Emily lost all interest in hearing herself talked about, especially since Rachel was there to bear witness to whatever potentially embarrassing things her parents might say next. The two girls walked normally up to the door of the office and Emily tapped on the outside of the glass wall to announce their presence.  
  
Elizabeth Sheppard turned her head away from her husband, eyebrows raised questioningly. A smile spread across her face when she saw her daughter. “Hey girls, there you are.” Emily didn’t miss how her mother’s green eyes darted towards her dad for a split second as she spoke. “Perfect timing.”  
  
 John, still seated on the edge of the desk, twisted at the waist to look at them and smiled. “Yeah, Em, we were just talking about you.”  
  
Emily lowered her hand from where she had held it hovering next to the glass and slipped inside the office. “Should I be worried?”    
  
“That all depends,” smirked her father. “Done anything worth worrying over lately?”  
  
“Who me?” She folded herself into one of the cream chairs that sat in front of the desk, letting a pondering expression come across her face as she pretended to think about the question. “Nope. Nothing comes to mind.”  
  
The corner of Elizabeth’s mouth quirked and she stared at her daughter appraisingly, thinly veiled suspicion lurking behind her eyes.  
  
“What?” Emily tried not to fidget under the scrutiny, but it was difficult. Why did she have to have a renowned intergalactic diplomat for a mother? She had long ago developed the belief that if she were a Wraith or some other bad guy and she was confronted with either her mother’s stare or her father’s P-90, it would be the former that would have her running for the stargate.  
  
Elizabeth’s gaze lit on the top of her head and one eyebrow shot upwards. Emily swallowed. Uh-oh. Here it comes. She didn’t know what about her head had given her away, but…  
  
“Nothing,” said Elizabeth lightly, leaning back in her chair. Now it was Emily’s turn to give a suspicious look, but she kept her mouth shut.  
  
Her mother sighed and looked up at John, who had moved from his perch on the edge of the desk to stand beside his wife’s chair. “I guess there’s not much point in asking if you know what’s come up?” Elizabeth shot Rachel a pointed look and Emily slowly shook her head.  
  
Elizabeth continued. “It’s an uninhabited planet, but there are Ancient ruins there and Dr. Melkov thinks that they’re worth a second look.”  
  
“So you’re sending a science team,” Emily finished eagerly.  
  
“Yes,” said Elizabeth, eyes narrowing slightly in an amused smile. “The day after tomorrow.”  
  
“Along with a group of Marines,” added John, arms folded across his chest.  
  
“For a scientific research trip?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“On an uninhabited planet?” Emily raised an eyebrow.    
  
Now John narrowed his eyes at her. “Let’s just say we’re erring on the side of caution.”  
  
“So, does that mean…?” she trailed off, waiting for her parents to take the opening. They just looked at each other, a confused look on John’s face.  
  
“Mean what?” he said.  
  
That was it; she couldn’t take it anymore. “Oh, come on, Dad! Please! I’ve been asking for this for months! Either just go ahead and tell me no again, or…” The arguments died away when she noticed the smirk that had spread across her father’s face. “Dad! Not funny!” she scolded, her face going red in embarrassment. She would have hit him if he’d been close enough.  
  
“Sorry, sweetheart,” he laughed. “Couldn’t resist.”  
  
She just glared at him, a difficult thing to achieve since now she was trying very hard to keep from laughing herself. “Still.”  
  
“Hey,” said John, walking around the desk. “If you’re going to go off to some planet without us, the least you can do is let me make a joke out of it.” He bent down and kissed the top of her head.  
  
“So I can go?”  
  
Once again, she didn’t miss the silent exchange that passed between her parents. “Yes,” said John, a note of resignation in his voice, “you can go.”  
  
Emily beamed and sprang out of her chair, throwing her arms around his neck. “Thank you!”  
  
John just laughed and pulled on one of her raven curls, releasing it so it bounced back into shape. “You’re welcome. Just don’t make me regret it,” he said, giving her a brief warning look. With that, he smiled again and left the office.  
  
The excitement nearly pouring off of her, Emily bounded towards Rachel and the office door, intending to catch her friend by the arm and hurry away to go flaunt the news to Connor and Max, but before she had gone two steps…  
  
“Hey, Emily?”  
  
She turned around. “Yeah?”  
  
“Brush your hair.” Emily’s hand crept unconsciously upwards and felt the mass of dark curls. She winced at the unusual amount of volume; this was even messier than usual, which was saying quite a bit. She met her mother’s gaze.  
  
Elizabeth looked at her, the green eyes that she had inherited sending a silent message and Emily suddenly realized that her mother knew that she had been climbing the tower. She had known the entire time, but she had chosen not to say anything. Emily felt a rush of gratitude; her mom knew as well as she did that if John Sheppard had found out about his daughter’s little feat of acrobatics then he would never have let her set foot through that gate.  
  
As it was, she just nodded and smiled, her look conveying an unspoken thank-you, and ran across the walkway with Rachel into the dimly glowing control room.

  
-o-

  
Connor paced back and forth in front of the gate, occasionally favoring his watch with an impatient glance. They should be leaving by now! Bright morning sunlight was streaming in from every direction through the towering stained glass windows that lined the front half of the gate room, and the faint scent of coffee wafted through the air. Above him the stargate loomed – symbols darkened, the light reflecting off of the turquoise crystal chevrons – exuding an air of ancient and everlasting patience that contrasted sharply with Connor’s current state of mind.  
  
The rest of the team was gathered by the small flight of steps that led down into the city, looking thankfully unbothered by the delay. The scientists were double checking their equipment one last time, and the Marines were laughing and swapping stories about the weird things they’d seen on night duty. One of them was speaking particularly loudly and Connor moved closer to listen. Listening to Lieutenant McFadden’s amusing tale about a mysterious ticking noise, Connor almost forgot why he had been so eager to leave before.  
  
Suddenly the conversation among the other soldiers died away. McFadden was the only one still talking; the man standing next to him quickly punched him in the shoulder to get him to shut up. Connor turned around to see the new arrivals that had caused the sudden military hush – the chatter of the scientists continued uninterrupted in the background. He grinned. _Now_ he remembered.  
  
His father and sister were coming down the grand staircase, his mom following a couple of close steps behind. John Sheppard placed a supportive arm around his daughter’s shoulders as they reached the bottom of the stairs and walked towards the waiting team. Emily was fully kitted out in tac vest and uniform, hair pulled up into a struggling bun and a stunner pistol strapped to her thigh, pride at her apparel evident in every move she made.  
  
They came to a stop in front of the away team, Major Thompson stepping forward to greet them. “Sir.” She nodded.  
  
“Major,” returned the colonel. John gestured towards Emily with a small smile. “I’ve brought you an addition for your team.”    
  
Major Thompson looked at Emily and smiled. The major was a tall woman, maybe in her late thirties, with tan skin and curly sandy colored hair twisted into a neat military bun. “Happy to have her, sir.”  
  
“Good, good.” John paused and Connor wondered how his dad managed to look both nervous and threatening at the same time. “I know I don’t need to…”  
  
Thompson smiled again, looking slightly amused. “She’s in good hands, sir. We’ll take care of her.”  
  
Connor decided to take that as his cue and stepped out from behind one of the Marines. “Yeah, we all will.”  
  
The look on Emily’s face when she saw him nearly made him burst out laughing; as it was, he couldn’t help but grin. _That_ was what he had been waiting for.  
  
Emily looked up at their father, a pained expression on her face. “You didn’t tell me Connor was coming along to babysit,” she muttered through gritted teeth.  
  
John just grinned at her. “Well, I think we’ve held up Major Thompson and her team long enough, don’t you?”  
  
She just shot him a look and gave a resigned and heavy sigh. Elizabeth came up beside her and placed an arm around her shoulders, nodding to Major Thompson.  
  
“Alright team, let’s move out,” Thompson ordered, tactfully giving her boss space to say goodbye to her daughter. Connor began to turn away too, catching a glimpse as he did so of Elizabeth whispering something in Emily’s ear, presumably ‘good luck’ or something to a similar effect.  
  
He walked up to his dad and smirked. “What, no ceremony for me?”  
  
John reached around him and ruffled his already messy hair, a gesture of affection that Connor had undergone as long as he could remember. It was embarrassing now, but Connor didn’t really have the heart to tell him to quit for good. “Hey,” he laughed, lightly shoving his arms away, “seventeen year-old here, remember?”  
  
“How can I forget?” his dad said, sticking his hands in his pockets, a slight twinge of wistfulness concealed in his voice. He glanced at the stargate, his watch, and then up to the control room.  
  
“Okay, Chuck, dial her up!” he called.  
  
Only a few seconds lapsed before the chevrons came to glowing life, the shining points of light that represented star constellations shooting dizzyingly around the gate’s inner track. The event horizon spilled into the sunlit gate room with its familiar splash before snapping into place inside the ring’s borders, a shimmering pool of aquamarine light. Major Thompson and the rest of the team moved towards it.  
  
Emily and Elizabeth came over to where John and Connor were standing, Elizabeth moving to her husband’s side. John looped an arm around her waist as they faced their children.  
  
“You’d better get moving,” said Elizabeth. She fixed her gaze on each of them in turn. “You two take care of each other,” she said seriously.  
  
“We will,” they said simultaneously, causing them to glance at each other in mild annoyance.  
  
“You’d better,” added their dad sternly. “Forty-eight hours; I expect you both back here in one piece.”  
  
They nodded. “Yes sir,” said Connor. His dad didn’t take that tone very often, and when he did it was best to do what he said.  
  
“John,” said Elizabeth, getting his attention. He turned to look at her; she dipped her head towards where Major Thompson was waiting.  
  
He paused for a moment and looked at each of them, then jerked his thumb in the direction of the active gate. “Alright, go on, get out of here.”  
  
With a last farewell, they turned and started walking towards the gate. The team had already begun to slip through the puddle.  
  
“Come on, admit it,” smirked Connor. “You know you’re glad to have me coming along.”  
  
Emily gave him an exasperated look, but her mouth quirked upwards into an almost smile. She fixed her gaze forwards on the pulsing event horizon. “You never heard the words leave my mouth.”  
  
Connor laughed as he stepped forwards, the sound echoing back at him as his world was filled with endless ripples of blue.

  
-o-

  
Emily inhaled deeply the second she cleared the puddle, filling her nostrils with the scent of alien air. She smiled wryly; it really wasn’t that different from any of the other planets she’d visited before: the smell of pine needles and wildflowers, although there was another layer to it that seemed to suggest a large body of freshwater nearby.  
  
“Come on, sis, open your eyes! You don’t want to miss anything, do you?”  
  
Her eyes snapped open at the sound and she glanced at her brother. He smiled at her and they started following the train of personnel snaking its way through the boulder-strewn field towards the forest that ringed it. Strange insects buzzed around their ankles and through the air. Up ahead Emily saw one of the scientists – an Ancient tech expert named Dr. Freyson – cry out and nearly fall over as he tried to avoid getting dive bombed by one of the bugs. Light laughter rippled through the group and some of Freyson’s fellow scientists started to tease him about the incident. Emily laughed too as she watched them, bubbles of happiness rising in her core. She had always seen the spirit of comradeship among off-world teams and now here she was! Finally getting to be a part of it.      
  
“Really though,” Connor continued more seriously, claiming her attention from the scene before her. “Don’t get caught lazing around. I’ve served under Major Thompson before; she’s nice, but she’s tough as nails and doesn’t exactly take well to unproductiveness.”  
  
“I’ll keep that in mind,” replied Emily.  
  
They had passed into the forest now, although the name didn’t really apply; the strand of trees spanned less than a quarter of a mile, then ended abruptly. Emily couldn’t stop the gasp as she emerged into open air. She had been right about the body of water, but that wasn’t what struck her. In the center of the enormous lake stretching out in front of them were two concentric islands, one situated within the other like a bullseye on a target. And on the center island was a remarkable structure of undoubtedly Ancient origins.  
  
“You know,” began Emily breathlessly, “when Mom said there were Ancient ruins, I was expecting…”  
  
“Things to be actually ruined?” finished Connor, identical traces of awe in his voice as he took in the landscape. “Yeah, me too. Nice surprise, isn’t it?”  
  
Connecting the islands to the mainland was a wide avenue at least half a mile long that looked to be made out of the same material as Atlantis’s piers; it swept above the surface of the lake in a slight arc, like a bridge. Major Thompson had halted the team at the foot of it, waiting for everyone to clear the woods. She nodded when she saw Connor and Emily.  
  
“Alright,” she called, her voice carrying clearly across the open. “We’ll take the causeway in rows of three across: scientists in the middle, McFadden and Harcolm in the rear, Ling up front with me.”  
  
 Everyone scurried to get into place, Emily and Connor moving to join the scientists until Major Thompson’s voice cut across the company’s chatter. “Connor, Miss Sheppard – with me.”  
  
“Miss Sheppard?” muttered Emily, screwing up her mouth in distaste as they marched to the head of the line.  
  
“Don’t worry,” murmured Connor. “She likes the formalities. Just give her some time to get to know you.”  
  
“Oh? And how long were you ‘Mr. Sheppard’?”  
  
Connor winced. “Um… for about… halfway through the first mission.”  
  
Emily tilted her head to the side. “Okay,” she mused, “so take the Major’s strict but fair sensibilities, factor in your annoying ability to make authority figures like you–”  
  
“Add in your penchant for always finding trouble,” interrupted Connor.  
  
She nodded at the suggestion. “Duly noted. Divide that by twelve…let’s see, that means I should get called by my first name in about… what, a year?”  
  
Connor shrugged. “Maybe… if you’re lucky.”  
  
They had reached the major by now, so Emily just smirked and lightly flicked him on the arm. Major Thompson glanced at each of them and nodded to Ling. “Let’s move,” she said, adjusting her P-90 more comfortably in the crook of her arm.  
  
Emily felt a gentle humming rush through her veins the instant she stepped onto the bridge’s metal surface. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling by any means; in a way it was similar to the sensation she received from Atlantis itself, although this lacked the welcoming quality that her home emanated.  
  
“Do you have the Ancient gene, Major?” she asked.  
  
Thompson looked over her shoulder and gave her a small smile. “No, I don’t. The gene therapy didn’t take, unfortunately. However, the preliminary report on this place has promised us good things, so I’ve come well prepared.”    
  
The caravan progressed along the causeway at a reasonable pace. A good street’s width separated one railing from the other, leaving plenty of room to spread out, which the equipment-laden scientists took full advantage of. Spaced at regular intervals along the edges of the walk were boxy light fixtures in the Ancient style, dim now with the daylight. On either side of them the lake rippled calmly away, reflecting the aqua colored sky.  
  
In a relatively short amount of time the islands’ outer ring loomed before them, the barely visible land topped by a sheer wall of dull metal. Deep grooves formed interconnecting patterns on its surface and, along the top, tower-like nodes protruded every twenty yards. There were no visible windows, only a large door placed at the end of the bridge to allow through-traffic.  
  
The party reaching the door, Thompson nodded to the man walking next to her. “Go ahead.”  
  
Captain Ling, who Emily now recognized as one of her father’s jumper pilots, stepped forward and placed his right hand on a crystal panel in the center of the door. The crystal glowed blue and with a mighty hiss the door split in two, the pieces retracting into the floor and ceiling to reveal a second set of doors already opening to the left and right. Another extension of walkway appeared before them, crossing over the inner watercourse to connect with the center island.  
  
Emily’s steps slowed and her mouth fell open slightly as the expedition passed through the outer wall. The sunlight that had made the lake glitter so brightly was instantly cut off. The wall’s long shadow ruled here, darkening the wide stretch of water and making it look even deeper than it clearly was. On the far side of the mega-moat, water lapped gently against the shore of a barely existent strip of beach, dampening the base of the building that dominated the island. Smooth metal rose from the ground until it reached the level of the causeway, where the construction changed and tiers of shining glass and silver began to stack upwards, growing smaller as they climbed into the sky. Topping the wedding cake was a circle of domed cylinders, linked together by a thick silver band like a crown.  
  
“And we had never heard of this place before… how, exactly?” wondered Emily, tilting her head upwards to see as much of her surroundings as possible.  
  
“The database is huge,” replied Connor distractedly. “There are thousands of entries; it’s not really a surprise we hadn’t found it yet.”  
  
“But we didn’t find out about it because of the database,” countered Emily. “Dr. Melkov and his team stumbled on it by mistake.”  
  
Connor shrugged. “We would have found it eventually.”  
  
“Unless somebody was trying to hide it,” said Emily. “I mean, something this big and there are no red flags that pop up? No mention in the Ancient ‘List of Very Important Projects’? We don’t know anything about this place. What the scientists do know they had to dig for, and even that’s not much.”  
  
“Well, hopefully by the end of the day we’ll have answers for some of those questions,” put in Major Thompson. “And until then, kindly keep a sharp look-out. This is supposedly an uninhabited planet, but I prefer not to take any chances.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” said Connor.  
  
They marched in silence until they reached the second doorway. “Captain Ling, if you would do the honors again,” ordered Thompson. Ling stepped forward and touched the crystal in the doorway, triggering the same process that had taken place on the outer gate. The doors slid into their hiding places, revealing only darkness beyond.  
  
Thompson and Ling flicked on the lights mounted to their weapons, exposing a hallway swathed in shadows that stretched far past the extent of the beams’ illumination. The pair stepped into the building, signaling the rest of the group to follow. Immediately, light fixtures running in bars along the walls flared into life, sensing the presence of Captain Ling’s gene.  
  
“Still not much light,” commented Thompson in disapproval. “Were these Ancients conducting darkness research or something?”  
  
The gentle humming that Emily had sensed on the bridge now grew three fold in intensity as she and Connor stepped over the threshold. Instantly dozens more lights blinked on along the ceiling and walls, chasing away every shadow until the hallway rivaled her Aunt Jennifer’s operating room for level of brightness. Thompson and Ling stopped walking, the major slowly turning around to look at the siblings.  
  
“Or maybe,” began Thompson, actually sounding a little impressed, “we’re just not quite Ancient enough to satisfy the place.” She smiled at Connor and Emily and resumed her forward march down the hall. The two shared a smiling look and followed close behind.

  
-o-

  
“Anything yet?”  
  
“Not really,” replied Dr. Freyson, laying down his data-pad for a moment and turning to Major Thompson. “I’ve started to get some hints at the research that was going on here, but nothing concrete as of yet.”  
  
The batch of scientists had eagerly set up their base of operations in a large circular room at the base of one of the domed towers. The soft whirring of laptops filled the air and streams of glowing data ran across the Ancient screens as diagnostic after diagnostic ran through the facility’s computer. Clusters of scientists had formed around the room, positioning themselves at various computer terminals and debating softly as they pointed out things on their data-pads to each other.  
Emily had settled herself in a corner to watch and be handy whenever one of the blue-clad people called her over to activate something, which had already happened quite a bit. She leaned forward on the bench, drumming her fingers against the speckled copper-colored sides. Except for the change of setting and the unusual level of enthusiasm, the scene before her was nearly identical to a typical day in her Uncle Rodney’s lab. Nice enough – certainly familiar enough – but Emily itched to be exploring the rest of the complex. That was what she was here to do after all.  
  
She caught Major Thompson’s eye and the older woman beckoned her over. “Miss Sheppard.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am?”  
  
“I think you and your brother have managed to turn on every single piece of equipment in this room.”  
  
Emily gave a small smile. “It’s not that hard of a job.”  
  
Thompson eyed her with a considering look. “Still. I think the two of you have outlived your usefulness here.” She jerked her thumb across the room. “Go rescue Connor and meet me in the hallway. There is far too much ground to cover and too little time to do it in.”

  
-o-

  
Glowing bars of lights preceded the small party down the hallway, a bubble that the darkness ahead never breached. Numerous interesting looking corridors branched off on all sides of the central hall, signs written in Ancient discreetly placed to give some indication of what went where. The place appeared absolutely deserted, that status confirmed by the life signs detector Connor was carrying. All was silent too, except for the low hiss of the air circulation system and the scuff of their footsteps against the smooth floor. Emily looked around her, a feeling of anxious excitement taking up permanent residence in her chest. This was somewhere new… No one knew what could be around the next corner, and she was getting to be one of the first to find out!  
  
Major Thompson, walking at the head of the group, paused at an intersection of two corridors and began reading off the signs. “Alright, power distrib –”    
  
“Major!” squawked her radio, interrupting her.  
  
Thompson tapped the small device at her ear. “Go ahead, Ling.”  
  
“We have a small domestic disturbance here that needs–”  
  
Thompson frowned. “You can’t handle it?”  
  
“I would, ma’am,” crackled the soldier’s voice, “but Dr. Freyson is also asking to see you. He says it’s important.”  
  
“Kill two birds with one stone, huh?”  
  
Ling replied in the affirmative and the major sighed. “Alright, I’ll be right there.”  
  
She turned to the rest of the scouting party. “Lieutenant, you come back with me. You two...” she looked at Connor and Emily. “When this is settled I don’t want to waste any time wandering around trying to find where we left off, so you’re going to mark our progress. Stay here and stay out of trouble.” She fixed her eyes on both of them, an expression that brooked no disobedience.  
  
“Will do,” replied Connor. Emily nodded.  
  
“Good. Alright, McFadden, let’s go.”  
  
The two of them set off down the hall, back the way they had come. Emily watched them until they disappeared behind a corner, then sighed. Just when things were getting interesting.  
  
She turned and began swinging her arms as she glanced around the space. Tile-work in muted colors, strips of blue and white lighting… standard décor, except for the prevalence of silver tones over the familiar brown. She walked ploddingly over to small directional sign that the major had begun to read before being called away.  
  
“Don’t tell me you’re bored already,” said Connor in disbelief. “They’ve only been gone about forty seconds.”  
  
“Power distribution,” said Emily.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Power distribution.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I’m reading the sign. What’s that one over there say?”  
  
Connor squinted at the far wall. “ _Vis Solarias_. Huh, that’s–”  
  
Movement flashed at the corner of Emily’s vision. She spun around, green eyes snapping from one side of the darkened hallway to the other.  
  
Nothing.  
  
“What is it?” Connor cut off his translation.  
  
“I thought I saw something move.” She continued to stare into the shadows behind him.  
  
“I didn’t see anything.” He turned around, trying to follow her gaze.  
  
Cautiously – her hand drifting unconsciously towards the stunner at her thigh – Emily stepped forward, causing the lights to activate in the nearest section of unexplored corridor.  
  
Empty. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and shook her head. “I guess I imagined it.”  
  
“Trick of the light?”  
  
“Yeah… probably.” She turned away from the _Vis Solarias_ hallway but froze when a loud whining sound began to build up behind her. Emily slowly wheeled round.  
  
The corridor that only a moment ago had been filled with ordinary light and shadow was now radiating a bright blue-green glow. The light came from thick translucent panels bisecting the walls on either side of the hall, the entire length of which was now visible, stretching away deep into the center portion of the facility. The whining sound leveled off and settled into a steady hum.  
  
“Whoa…” Emily breathed. “Did I do that?”  
  
“You’re the one that stepped in the hallway,” replied Connor absently, taking a few steps closer to the source of the glow. He stretched out a hand towards a panel,  
watching the way his skin became tinted by the teal light.  
  
Emily walked fully into the hall, holding out her arms to bathe herself in the glow. “Maybe Dr. Freyson did it from that lab; Ling said he’d found something.”  
  
“Maybe,” Connor shrugged. He tapped the radio at his ear. “Major Thompson, come in.”  
  
A crackling reply came through, the words indistinct and garbled. ‘ _The glow must be interfering with the signal,’_ thought Emily with mild interest.  
  
“…Freyson activate something in the central part of the complex?” Connor was asking over the radio.  
  
Emily gazed down the hallway. “I wonder what’s down there.”  
  
Connor heard her. He broke off mid-reply to the major, clamping his palm over the mouthpiece of his headset. “No way,” he said, glaring, “don’t you even think about it!”  
  
Emily rolled her eyes by way of response and Connor, shooting her one last suspicious look, turned back to his radio.  
  
Ignoring his attempts at contact, she walked over to the wall and mimicked Connor’s earlier gesture, holding her hand up to the glowing panel. She had expected there to be no sensation from the luminance, but she was surprised to find that, closer to its source, the blue-green light actually felt cool as it washed over her skin. One corner of her mouth lifted in a pleased smile.  
  
Several seconds ticked by as she stood examining the light, until an impulse drove her to glance down the hallway. At the same instant, a shadow streaked across her field of vision – there one moment and gone the next. Emily set her jaw and clenched her fist. That was no trick of the light.  
  
Before she even knew what she was doing, she was running down the hall.  
  
“What the– Em, hey!” shouted Connor. She could hear him coming after her, muttering curses, his standard issue boots pounding against the hard floor. “Wait!”  
  
She didn’t pay any attention to him.  
  
The hall stretched on. A pair of corridors appeared before her, cutting through the main stem of hallway and branching off to go in opposite directions. She skidded to a halt for barely a moment, then made a choice and ran down the right hand branch. There was no blue glow here, but all the lights were already on… Someone – or some _thing_ – was there. The hall bent to the left, the path circling back towards the center of the complex. Emily ran on, chasing after nothing; the shadow hadn’t appeared again and she briefly considered stopping, but pushed the thought away. No. Whatever it was, she was going to find it.  
  
“Emily, for crying out loud, would you wait!” yelled Connor, coming steadily up behind her.  
  
She finally stopped, but not because of her brother’s commands. The corridor had come to an end, terminating in a large set of geometrically carved doors inlaid with panels of blue glass. She rested her hands on her hips and looked up at the doors, heart beating in a faster than normal rhythm as she caught her breath.  
  
“What the heck was that all about?” Connor demanded as he drew up beside her, bracing a hand against the wall for support. He sucked in several deep breaths and carelessly ran his fingers through his hair, making the brown waves stick out in several new directions.    
  
“I saw something move again,” said Emily.  
  
“What was it?”  
  
“I don’t know. But I _do_ know I saw something this time.”  
  
“Wasn’t gonna question it,” said Connor, holding up a placating hand. Things grew quiet for a minute. Emily saw him turn his gaze upwards towards the doors.  
  
“Where are we?”  
  
“Let’s find out.” Without giving him time to protest, Emily flattened her palm against the turquoise crystal panel built into the wall. The doors separated and retracted with their normal motion, revealing the room inside. Emily gave Connor an excited grin and received a wary frown in response.  
  
As the pair stepped through the door, Emily was immediately aware of the vast space soaring over their heads. The room had to be at least seven stories tall, as if one of the towers had been simply hollowed out instead of being divided into floors. A gigantic circular hole was cut into the dome of the roof, covered with glass and thickly ringed with silver to match the one on the top of the building. The aqua colored sky was visible through the glass, the pale blue streaked with violet and gold to signal the coming sunset.  
  
“Whoa,” gaped Connor, and Emily dropped her gaze to see what had drawn his attention. Her eyes widened as she took in the device that filled the center of the room. Whoa, indeed.  
  
Encased in a spacious tube of thick glass was a swirling, pulsating sphere of blue-green light. Well over twice as large as Emily, it was like a small, bearable-to-look-at sun. Panels of teal light identical to those in the central corridor radiated from the base of the tube like the spokes on a wheel, the glow drawn from the miniature star floating at the device’s center.  
  
Emily slowly walked up to one of the consoles that ringed the device, transfixed by the billowing azure blaze. She could feel the coolness in the air.  
  
“This is what this whole place is about,” Connor said softly.  
  
“Yeah…” Emily agreed, almost in a trance-like state. She had no clue what the device did, but this was certainly the most beautiful Ancient experiment she’d ever seen. Suddenly a thought occurred to her and she smiled. “Rachel would kill to be seeing this right now.”  
  
Connor smirked slightly. “Yeah, she probably would. And Uncle Rodney would be right on her heels.”  
  
“No way. He’d have gotten here first,” Emily corrected with a laugh. The spell of the sphere was broken and she felt free to look around at the rest of the room. She frowned, realizing something important. “There’s no one else here.” She spun around, trying to peer into corners. There had to be.  
  
“That’s probably a good thing, Em,” said Connor.  
  
Emily mumbled an agreement, but she was still more annoyed by the disappearance of her mysterious vision than worried by its motives. Maybe she’d taken a wrong turn during her pursuit...

As she moved away from the console, a large hank of dark hair swung against the side of her face. Speaking of said pursuit... The bun that she had so painstakingly piled together before leaving Atlantis – and that had been struggling to maintain itself anyway – had been all but demolished by the sprint through the hallways. Sighing, Emily reached up to the back of her head and began removing the pins one by one.  
  
“Do you have to do that now?” said Connor, waving his hands pointedly at their discovery.  
  
“It’ll just keep falling down if I don’t,” she replied calmly as she pulled out pins. “Shouldn’t you be contacting the major or something anyway?”  
  
She ignored his response and concentrated on the task at hand, adding to the growing stack of black metal on top of the console next to her.  
  
“Good grief, how many pins did you put in there?” Connor finally asked.  
  
She ran her fingers through her now-loose curls, hunting for any strays. “Let’s put it this way; if there was a giant magnet overhead waiting to snap us up, I’d have been the first one to go.”    
  
Her brother, sounding amused in spite of himself, muttered something about women and turned back to the computer console in front of him. Emily snapped an elastic around her hair, sighing in satisfaction at the familiar swish of the infinitely more practical ponytail. Why hadn’t she just done that in the first place? Right. Because she’d wanted to look professional. Ha! Her fingers fumbled over the last two pins in her hand and Emily, grumbling, bent to pick them up. She straightened just in time to see Connor press one of the line of lit buttons arranged on the dashboard before him.  
  
A holographic display screen appeared, scrolling with electric blue Ancient characters. Emily’s eyebrows furrowed, her hand frozen in midair, reaching towards the pile of hairpins. “Are you sure that’s–”  
  
The rest of the caution was cut off as the device in the center of the room suddenly rose in pitch, filling the space with a keen whine. Emily winced and spun around.  
  
The glowing sphere, once calm, was now wild, rapidly shooting out pulsing rays of teal light in all directions. The panels on the floor were beaming brighter, and all around the room new lights blinked as more computers flared into full activation.  
  
“What did you _do_?” demanded Emily over the noise.  
  
Connor looked just as stunned as she was. “Nothing!” He gestured at the console in front of him. “This is just a data terminal, it shouldn’t have activated anything!”  
  
“Well something did it!”  
  
The whine of the machine continued to increase in volume. The sphere was growing continually more active as well, crackling streaks of what looked like bright blue lightning emerging from the center to strike the transparent walls that contained it.  
  
“Can we turn it off?”  
  
“We don’t even know how it was turned _on_!” Connor looked up from the data screen to the center column. The noise reached a fever pitch, and with an almighty crack a dozen bolts of the blue lighting struck the sides of the tube. They fixed to the sides in a nearly blinding display as blue-green light was channeled from the surging ball of energy to rush up the glass in roaring waves to the ceiling.  
  
“Connor…” called Emily nervously, the fear building inside her echoing the growing swirl of energy in the device.  
  
He didn’t answer her. Frantically he pressed the radio at his ear. “Major Thompson! Can you… There’s nothing but static.” His eyes, a mirror of her own fear, flashed from her to the machine. “Let’s go. Run.”

He didn’t have to tell her twice. They both darted towards a door, larger than the one they had come through. It opened automatically and they found themselves in the same large corridor that had begun this whole mess. It was different now. As she ran, Emily saw that all along the hallway the glow had doubled in intensity, the teal streaked with electric blue lightning. It was a conduit, she suddenly realized. Those panels must run through the whole complex. But that brief thought was all she spared for it; she put all of her energy into running.  
  
They pounded into the intersection where the major had first left them and turned towards the direction of the makeshift base camp, two levels below. Connor tried repeatedly to hail someone on the radio but to no effect. Doors and other hallways flashed by as they ran. Emily prayed that they were going the right way.  
  
Each minute that ticked by, the tension built, even though it should have been decreasing as they put more distance between themselves and the device. As a result she nearly screamed when a figure dashed out in front of them.  
  
“Major!”  
  
“We didn’t know what–” “Did you–” began Connor and Emily simultaneously.  
  
“No time for that,” barked Thompson. “We’re getting out of here. Everyone else is already heading towards the gate.” The older woman put a hand on Connor’s shoulder and gave him a light shove. “Let’s move!”  
  
The three ran through the complex, bypassing the lab completely as they raced towards the exit. The humming noise could be heard everywhere now. Whatever was going to happen when that device went off was going to happen soon.  
  
“You know,” gasped Connor as they ran, “it was really stupid of the Ancients to only make one exit for this place.” Emily privately agreed, but she was too busy running to answer.  
  
When Emily finally saw the doorway she put on an extra burst of speed, passing Major Thompson to get there first. She slammed her palm against the door crystal so hard it stung. The doors finished their opening sequence just as the other two reached them, and they all sprinted down the causeway. Connor opened the next set of doors in the outer wall. There, just visible on the far shore of the lake, the last of the train of Atlantis personnel were disappearing into the woods. Emily blanched when she saw the length of the bridge; she already had a stitch in her side – how was she going to make it to the gate?  
  
Thompson urged them onwards, alternately yelling at them to pace themselves and to keep moving as fast as they could. The water on either side of the bridge was shockingly calm; Emily had half expected it to be rough and surging like a storm.  
  
Halfway across, she looked back over her shoulder. The blue-green light had spread to the tops of each of the domed sections, threads of it beginning to twine around the thick silver band that connected all the towers. There was so much power coursing through that structure. Why was there no record of it? What was it doing? The towers coursed with a band of the blue lightning and Emily urged her struggling body to go even faster. She didn’t want to be here to find out.  
  
The trio reached the end of the causeway, using the pull of the slope to send them crashing down into the woods. Branches splintered underfoot and grabbed for their clothes as they barreled through the trees. By now Emily was one giant, gasping-for-air ache. Her heart was pounding in her chest and excruciating pain lanced through her side with every step, but she didn’t slow down.  
  
They exited the woods and Emily felt relief swell in her as the stargate came into view. Major Thompson sprinted ahead and began dialing Atlantis’s address. As the siblings ran across the field to join her, Connor suddenly caught his foot in a dip in the ground and pitched forwards onto the dirt with a gasp. Emily wheeled around, stumbling, her momentum making her scramble to get upright.  
  
“Come on, big brother,” she panted, pulling on his arm to help him up. “Almost there.” She heard the sound of the gate activating off to her left.  
  
“Sheppards!” called Thompson.  
  
Emily twisted her neck to see the major standing silhouetted in front of the event horizon. “We’re coming, go ahead!” she yelled.  
  
“Not a chance!” the major yelled back.  
  
Emily finished helping Connor lever himself to his feet. “You okay?”  
  
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he nodded. “Let’s go.”  
  
As they hurried towards the gate, some instinct made Emily looked back over the treetops in the direction of the lake. She felt her mouth fall open. Shooting upwards into the sky was a beam of powerful blue-green energy as wide as at least a dozen of Earth’s sequoia trees put together. The beam went on and on, disappearing far into the upper atmosphere.  
  
“Hurry up, go!” Thompson commanded, waving them forward. They turned and dashed through the puddle as fast as they could force their tired limbs to move.

 

-o-

  
Connor breathed a deep sigh of relief and exhaustion as he emerged from the event horizon, bending double with his hands braced against his knees as he tried to gather his breath. The gate snapped closed behind him. Home in one piece, as his dad had commanded… Aunt Jennifer would insist on giving him a checkup first, but then he could take a nice hot show–  
  
A familiar metallic clicking sound stopped that happy thought process. Connor slowly lifted his head and saw his sister standing slightly in front and to the side of him, hands held in the air. He straightened up with equal slowness and copied her stance. An arch of half a dozen hard-faced Marines stood in front of them, automatic weapons aimed at their chests. Not exactly the welcome he’d been expecting.

He glanced around, noticing that he and Emily stood alone. “Where’s Major Thompson?”  
  
“She didn’t come through,” said Emily, not taking her eyes off the guards.  
  
“Just us?”  
  
“Just us.”  
  
“Well,” Connor said quietly. “This isn’t good.”  



	3. Chapter 2: An Impossible Future

It was Ronon who voiced what they were all thinking. “Do you think they’re telling the truth?”   
  
It was the obvious question. John leaned back in his chair and ran a hand through his messy hair, fragments of what he had just heard swirling through his mind. He still didn’t quite know what to make of it all. And from the looks on the faces of everyone else in the conference room, neither did they.   
  
The two teenagers had finished telling their story roughly ten minutes ago. Woolsey had immediately called a meeting of all the senior staff members, marching those who had been in the holding cell back up the tower to the conference room. On the way, in the midst of non-stop speculation about the possible scientific implications of the event, Rodney had kept shooting John strange looks, as if he were waiting for some kind of explosive reaction. John had ignored him.   
  
“I can’t imagine what they could hope to accomplish by telling such a lie,” said Woolsey. “An attempt to gain our sympathies and our trust? There are easier ways.”   
  
 “I agree,” said Rodney. “I mean, why would you go to the trouble of creating a lie that far-fetched–” Another glance at John, who wished he would knock it off. “–with a background that scientifically complex if you just wanted to cause trouble?”   
  
“Indeed,” said Teyla, eyebrows raised slightly as she shook her head. “We have dealt with time travel before – with Dr. Weir, and with Colonel Sheppard just last year–” She gestured towards him. “–and seen our doubles in clones and alternate realities, but I have never read of an incident in any of Stargate Command’s files where someone’s children have appeared from the future. Besides, why would they tell a lie that could be so easily found out? Especially with circumstances... being as they are.”   
  
Now Teyla was giving him furtive, significant glances. Great.   
  
John, who had been silent for most of the meeting and only half paying attention, finally spoke up. “They seemed genuinely scared when we were in the gate room. Either they’re damn good actors, or they at least believe what they were saying was true.”   
  
“So maybe it is,” said Rodney.   
  
John glared at him. “Yeah, McKay, except that we all seem to keep forgetting the fact that I never married Elizabeth and I _don’t have any kids_. What, do you think I’ve been secretly hiding a baby in my dresser?”   
  
“Okay, so maybe they’re not _your_ kids, but they definitely belong to some John Sheppard. I mean, did you see that boy’s hair?” There was a simultaneous eye-roll from everyone in the room. He looked around for confirmation. “Oh, come on!” said Rodney. “You saw it! It was all…” He stuck his hands behind his head and waved his fingers around wildly.  
  
“Can we please get back to the matter at hand now?” demanded Woolsey. Ronon leaned over and smacked McKay in the back of the head, eliciting a muffled ‘ow!’   
  
Rubbing his head and scowling, Rodney looked up at the group assembled. “As I was saying before I was so _rudely_ interrupted… After hearing their story, it’s pretty obvious what’s happened here. This device that they found must have somehow sent them to an alternate reality, one that’s running behind them by a couple decades or so.”   
  
“And how exactly did it do this?” questioned Woolsey.   
  
“Well, I’ve come up with a couple of theories, but I’d–”  
  
“Rodney,” interrupted Teyla, “before we speculate too much about how these children have come here, should we not first be attempting to verify their identities as much as possible?”   
  
“Exactly the point I was going to raise next,” said John, lifting a finger.   
  
“They’re with Dr. Keller now,” said Woolsey. “We’ll determine at least part of the truth soon enough.” 

  
\--o--

  
“This might hurt a little,” warned Dr. Keller kindly as she prepped a needle and syringe.  
  
“It usually does,” Emily muttered under her breath.   
  
“Sorry?” said Jennifer absently, looking up.   
  
“Huh? Oh, nothing.” Emily gave the young doctor an innocent smile. Keller smiled good-naturedly in return as she took hold of her arm and proceeded to draw a sample of her blood. Emily flinched as the needle went in, but didn’t react further; as many times as this woman had had to give her shots… it was nothing new. She purposefully looked away from the filling syringe, though; she wasn’t one of those people who got squeamish at the sight of blood, but knowing it was hers still unnerved her a bit. Instead, she looked around the room, a strange feeling growing inside her as she marked each difference in the arrangement of things. Those shelves should be against the opposite wall… the medicines were stored the wrong way… that cabinet had broken three years ago – she had cut her finger on the glass when it happened (not her fault, of course) – but there it stood…   
  
“All done,” said Keller, releasing the tourniquet and placing the now full syringe on the silver tray next to the infirmary bed. “Now hold your arm–” The doctor turned and reached out to take Emily’s wrist, but found her already applying pressure and holding said arm bent at the elbow. Jennifer gave a half smile. “Yeah, like that.”   
  
She stepped across the room and handed the blood sample to a nurse for analysis, then came back to Emily and checked her arm. Emily watched her as Keller dabbed antibiotic cream on the tiny hole and stuck on a band-aid.   
  
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Emily asked. At Keller’s surprised look, she added quickly, “I mean, you don’t know for sure that we’re telling the truth yet. Shouldn’t you be a little more…I don’t know… less friendly?”   
  
Jennifer tossed away the bandage wrapper and folded her arms across her chest. “Do I have a reason to be?”   
  
“Well, no. But– but I could be an alien or have...” Emily waved her hand as she tried to think of an appropriately scary possibility. “...freaky mind powers or something.”   
  
Keller smirked, but quickly schooled her face into a more professional expression. “Well, that’s exactly what I’m trying to determine here. And until we discover any threats or _freaky mind powers_ , you’re my patient and I’m going to do my job. If it makes you feel any better, I doubt your escorts are going anywhere anytime soon.” Her eyes flicked towards the pair of guards standing by the wall a few yards away.   
  
Emily couldn’t think of anything to say to that. At her silence, Jennifer uncrossed her arms, fetched more antiseptic and bandages, and began to clean the shallow cut on Emily’s forehead. Emily figured that she must have gotten it when she and Connor were running through the trees on the planet, but she had no memory of it happening.   
  
She was a mess all over. Her clothes were streaked with dust and dirt, she desperately needed a shower or a stick of deodorant, and her hair... well, that went without saying. She also felt strangely naked and unprepared, as she had nothing with her in this bizarre place but herself and the clothes on her back. Her pack had been left behind in the scientist’s base-camp before she and Connor had begun exploring and she’d managed to lose her stunner sometime during the mad dash for the gate. Which was just as well, she thought, since it would have immediately been taken from her anyway. At least she hadn’t lost this, though. She reached for the pendant strung on a chain around her neck, giving it a squeeze. Her mom would kill her if she lost that.   
  
Emily let Keller minister to her injuries in silence for a little while before asking, “How’s Connor?” _‘At least I’ve got him with me. That’s something.’_  
  
“Is that the boy who was with you?” Keller asked.  
  
The doctor’s lack of knowledge was jarring. She should know that!  
  
 Emily gave a tight nod. “My brother.”   
  
“He’s fine,” said Keller reassuringly. “He’s being taken care of in another room.”   
  
Emily snorted. “Why? So we can’t conspire? You think we’re going to try and take over the city or something?” she said with scorn.  
  
Keller raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. “Weren’t you just the one telling me that I ought to be more cautious?”  
  
Emily opened her mouth to speak and closed it, caught. This was so confusing. She sighed and rubbed at her dirty face, becoming aware for the first time of just how tired she was. Right now all she wanted was a hot shower and to crawl into her own bed and sleep for a day. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.   
  
She thought for a moment, struggling to find the words to explain herself. Finally: “I’m not saying that that’s not the right thing to do, Aun–” She caught herself, stopping the automatic form of address that sprang to her lips, and forced out the correct one. “Dr. Keller. I’m just saying that it’s not necessary.”   
  
Keller studied her for a moment, as if she were trying to get a read on whether or not Emily was telling the truth. Emily looked right back and was struck with the same thought that had been running through her head ever since she’d entered the infirmary. She looked so young! This was weird beyond all belief. This was her Aunt Jennifer: her best friend’s mom, the woman who had always been there to patch up her numerous scrapes and bruises with a gentle hand and a sympathetic ear. But now here she was, treating Emily with nothing more than the usual kindness a doctor showed toward a patient – with no recognition whatsoever.  
  
 Keller gave a slight nod. “We’ll see,” was her reply. She moved away again and stripped off the pair of surgical gloves she had been wearing. “Now come on, let’s get you under a scanner.” 

  
\--o--

  
John walked into the conference room and slumped down into the same seat he’d occupied earlier that day. Everyone else that needed to be was already there, except for one. John’s fingers began to drum nervously against the table top as they waited for Doctor Keller to arrive and deliver her report.   
  
Several hours had passed since that first dazed meeting after hearing the kids’ story. John had left the conference room immediately afterwards, brushing off his teammates’ attempts to talk to him. He had wandered towards the cafeteria, vaguely considering having the lunch that he’d never gotten to eat, but when he arrived, he had discovered that he wasn’t really very hungry anymore. He was too full of nerves, of thoughts about the answers the doc would bring. Who were these kids? Where were they from? Were they telling the truth? It wasn’t possible that they were. John knew that. But he could _see_ Elizabeth in both of them – heck, if he were being honest he could even see a little of himself. And that thought scared the hell out of him.   
  
Many times over the past few hours thoughts about what Elizabeth would say if she were here had crossed his mind. He could imagine that look of stunned disbelief that would have been on her face after hearing the teenagers’ claims, and see her listening to their story: arms folded across her chest, eyebrows knitted together in a look of intense concentration. Between him and Elizabeth, doubtless one of them would make a weak attempt to diffuse the strangeness of the situation by joking about how the Atlantis rumor mill and accompanying betting pool would be going crazy. Yes, John could picture that scene very well – it brought a small smile to his face – but beyond that… he had nothing. For some reason, when it came to this situation, he had no idea what she would say, and that just bothered him even more.   
  
John was snapped out of his reverie by Doctor Keller entering the room. He straightened up in his chair and rolled it closer to the huge wooden table Woolsey had imported, resting one arm on its surface. “Well, Doc, what’s the verdict?” _‘Come on, let them be liars. That I can handle; that I can deal with.’_  
  
Jennifer set a folder down on the table and turned to face the assembled staff. “Well, they seem to have been telling the truth, at least partly.” She looked directly at John. “According to every test I’ve run, those kids are your children, Colonel.”   
  
There went the easy way out. John leaned slowly back in his chair, exhaling deeply. “Are you sure?”   
  
“Positive.” Keller took out a small remote and pointed it at the flat-screen. Three different strands of DNA twisted across the screen. She hit the button again and similar sections on each of the strands became highlighted in blue. “I ran every test I can think of, and then checked and double checked to make sure. You’re a parental match, Colonel. These kids are Sheppards.”   
  
John was quiet for a minute. No one else said anything either. He swallowed to try and moisten a suddenly dry throat. “And what about…”  
  
Keller took a deep breath and nodded. “I ran that test too. We still have some of Dr. Weir’s old records on file.” She pressed the button on the remote once again and another DNA strand, this one marked ‘Elizabeth Weir,’ appeared next to the other three. Another click and segments of Elizabeth’s and the kids’ DNA became highlighted in green. “She’s a match too.”   
  
John’s lips pressed together in a thin line and he scrubbed at his forehead as if he could wipe away the insanity of the situation. His peripheral vision caught Teyla letting out a deep breath, an unsettled look on her face as she also sank back into her seat.  
   
“Well...” said Woolsey helpfully, trailing off into silence. The whole room seemed to be digesting this bit of news. Having someone claim to be the child of your dead boss was one thing; having the proof of it staring you in the face was something else all together.  
   
Suddenly an idea blazed through John’s mind and he grabbed hold of it, desperately reaching for something – anything – that would make more sense than what they’d just been told. “What if they were grown in some lab somewhere?” he blurted out. “I mean, someone could have lifted some DNA samples off me and Elizabeth off-world and decided to make a couple of kids.”   
  
Keller nodded, seeming to consider the idea. “I suppose it’s possible. I can run some more tests, compare them to some of Dr. Beckett’s cells and see if I can find any similarities.”  
  
“That still doesn’t explain how they know so much,” said Ronon, as usual cutting succinctly to the heart of a problem.   
  
“No it doesn’t, but I think it’s best we explore all our options here,” said Keller, crossing her arms. “At this point almost the only things I’m 100 percent certain about is that they’re healthy and completely human.”   
  
Woolsey sighed. “Very well. Is there anything else worth reporting, Doctor?”   
  
“Actually, yes.” Keller turned back to the flat screen and pointed the remote once again. “It seems that Miss Sheppard and–”  
   
John winced. “Can we not call her that?” he interrupted.   
  
Keller glanced at him, clearing her throat uncomfortably. “Right. Sorry.” She gave an apologetic grimace and quickly looked away. “Um, anyway... it seems that Emily and her brother Connor both have a very strong showing of the Ancient gene – actually a little bit stronger than yours, Colonel.”   
  
“Great,” said Rodney sarcastically, piping up for the first time since Ronon had smacked him into silence earlier, “if things start going haywire around the city then we know who to blame.”   
  
“I would have thought you’d’ve been happy to have some new guinea pigs to work with, Rodney,” needled John out of habit, although his heart wasn’t really in it at the moment. He was remembering his speculation of earlier, when he’d caught himself wondering if the kids had inherited the ATA gene...    
  
“Well I would of course, but–”  
   
“But those children are not going anywhere except the brig or the infirmary until I deem it safe to let them move elsewhere,” said Woolsey. “I’ve ordered them to be kept separate for the time being until I’ve had a chance to question them further. I don’t want them collaborating; hopefully there will be some discrepancies in their story that we can use to find out what is really going on here. Dr. McKay, if you would look into the gate address that they dialed from? Perhaps we can find out more information from there.”  
   
Woolsey issued a few more orders and then dismissed everyone. John saw Teyla eying him and quickly repeated his earlier exit, slipping out of the conference room before she could catch him and ask him how he was doing. He really didn’t want to have this discussion just yet, even though he knew it was inevitable.   
  
The sun was beginning to set, and buckets of golden-orange light were pouring through the stained glass windows in the gate room. John was halfway there before he realized that his feet had automatically directed themselves towards the door of the balcony. He froze for a moment and then redirected his steps towards the stairs. Moving through the control room, he caught Chuck watching him from behind his console. The technician hastily looked down, but John had seen that knowing expression. He frowned as he jogged down the steps; that man was too perceptive for his own good.   
  
Still seeking fresh air, John took a transporter to the southeast pier and found a smaller, more secluded balcony on one of the towers. The doors hissed open and he stepped out into the amber sunlight, blessing the cool sharp breeze that whipped through his hair and helped to shake him out of his stupor. At least most of it.   
  
He walked up to the railing and leaned against it, looking out over the glittering sea that stretched far beyond the horizon. Ronon was right, of course. Although artificial growth was within the realm of possibility, it still didn’t account for how much those kids _knew_. About Atlantis, about Elizabeth... about him. He had noticed it before, how at home they seemed in the city. And – he now realized in annoyance – some part of his mind had automatically run under the assumption that they were telling the truth about who they were: the part that had wondered about the ATA gene, the part that had smirked at the boy’s sarcastic handling of Woolsey in the holding cell...   
  
John gave a low growl of frustration and raked his fingers through his hair, resting his forehead against his palm so that he was staring down at the pier below. His head was like a broken record and a battleground all at once: _‘But it can’t be true! It isn’t possible!’_ repeated over and over again, all the while grappling with the tiny part that wondered why he was denying the situation so fiercely. Round and round went his thoughts, swirling so fast that he thought his brain might explode. Why was he denying it? Why couldn’t he just accept the information and deal with it like he did with every other strange thing they encountered? _‘You know why, John,’_ whispered an isolated corner of his mind, but he slammed the door shut on those thoughts before they could fully manifest. A curl of breeze swept across his face again and he sighed, straightening up to gaze at the gilded sky. This had been one hell of a day.   
  
He stood and watched the sunset for a few more minutes, until the wind grew cool enough to warrant a jacket that he didn’t have with him. Reluctantly, he turned to go inside, the sparkling towers behind him and a new question whispering through his thoughts. _Why did she keep coming back?_

  
\--o--  
 

  
Connor was pacing. Arms alternating between swinging at his sides or being folded across his chest, he crossed the rectangular space that was his cell. The soles of his military issue boots scuffed across the gray floor, making the only other noise besides the faint hum of the invisible force-shield that surrounded the bars. He didn’t know how long he had been doing this, or how many times he had made the circuit – side, side, diagonal, side, side, diagonal – somewhere after a hundred and fifty he had stopped counting. Normally, pacing wasn’t his style; that was Emily’s job. He was the calm one (mostly). She would be practically climbing the walls, out of her mind with impatience, and he would sit off to the side and let her fume, because he had learned long ago that suggestions of ‘would you please just sit down!’ and ‘wearing yourself out won’t make it happen any faster’ never quite connected well with his sister. But Emily wasn’t here.   
  
He didn’t know where they had put her. If he had to hazard a guess, he would have said that he was in the northern cell block, a prison area situated just beyond the base of the central tower. Another guess would have placed Emily as being held in one of the rooms next to this one, but he didn’t know for sure. He didn’t know anything for sure at the moment. Everything felt like a bad dream, or that creepy Wonderland book he had read when he was little.   
  
Had they really traveled back in time?   
  
He hadn’t been able to read much of the information on that data console back on the planet, but that was the only explanation that made sense. No one knew who they were. His dad was still a Lt. Colonel and didn’t have any gray hair; Ronon’s beard was shorter and his dreads were longer; the infirmary was arranged all the wrong way, and his mom... well, she must have been busy. Off-world, maybe, some kind of diplomatic mission. Her absence at all the proceedings so far was strange, and he missed her open-minded rationality and her calmness in the face of the unusual. Both those things would’ve come in handy right now, he thought with a wry glance at the cell bars. Yet even stranger had been Woolsey’s implication that she wasn’t the leader of Atlantis at the moment. That didn’t sound right, but without the histories on his data-pad Connor couldn’t be sure. He had asked the nurse who had examined him earlier if he could see her, and since being put in the cell he had made several attempts to question the guard standing by the door, but to no avail. No one seemed to want to talk to him about Elizabeth Weir.   
  
_‘Or anything else,’_ muttered his thoughts. He knew these people – they wouldn’t hurt Emily – and he could see the reasoning behind keeping the two of them separate, but the knowledge didn’t make him any less antsy. He was supposed to look out for her; he needed to reassure himself that she was alright. _‘Dad’s gonna kill me if she isn’t alright.’_ But his dad was right upstairs... Except that he wasn’t. Except that he was... "Urrggh!!" In frustration Connor swiped his left arm at the barrier, receiving an extremely painful shock for his trouble. His hand now numb, he cradled it against his chest while murmuring curses under his breath. He’d known that was coming, but it still hurt like h–   
  
The outer door to the room opened, and Connor spun around, half hoping that it was his mom come to see him at last, but it was only another guard. There was a German flag on his arm and a dinner tray in his hands. He exchanged a few words with the guard by the door; Connor’s German was a little patchy, but he knew enough to gather that they were apparently having lemon meringue pie in the mess hall that evening – a rare treat indeed. He smirked half-heartedly to himself. _‘Uncle Rodney’s gonna have fun with that one.’_ After the German guard had left, Connor stepped over to the tray that had been deposited on the floor and nudged one of the plastic containers with his foot. Oh look, he got pie too. What joy. He tried to imagine meeting his sister’s eyes and sharing as laugh over their adopted uncle’s antics as they normally would, but the attempt fell flat. Sighing, Connor carried his tray to a corner and mechanically began to eat. The teasing and jokes of earlier that day seemed miles and miles away. 

  
\--o--

  
“Please state your full name.”   
  
“Really?”   
  
“Your name. Please.”   
  
“Fine. Emily Lora Sheppard.”   
  
“Connor Evan James Sheppard.”   
  
“How old are you?”  
  
“Seventeen.”  
  
“Don’t you know it’s rude to ask a girl that?”   
  
“Please answer the question.” Annoyance.  
  
Sigh. “I’m fifteen.”   
  
“In what year were you born?”   
  
“2011.”  
  
“2013. What year is it now?”   
  
Ignore. “State the full names of your parents.”   
  
“You’ve already know that!”   
  
“Full. Names.”   
  
Eye-roll.  
  
Sigh.   
  
“Colonel John Sheppard, US Air Force, Commander of...”   
  
“... Elizabeth Weir Sheppard, PhD in...”   
  
“Is she here?”   
  
“Could we please talk to our mother?”  
  
“I would have thought–”   
  
“Why hasn’t she come to see us yet?"  
  
Silence. Hesitation. Obviously uncomfortable. Cool stare. “As you seem to keep forgetting, I am the one conducting this interrogation. You will please refrain from asking further questions.” Looks down at paper.   
  
Suspicion.   
  
Distrust.   
  
Jerk.   
  
“Place of birth?”   
  
“Atlantis.”  
  
“In what part of the city were you born?”  
  
“The infirmary, duh. What kind of a question is–?”   
  
Glare.   
  
Sigh.  
  
“Have you always lived on Atlantis, or did you ever reside on Earth?”  
  
“Well, we...”  
  
“They were wiped out when I was a kid...”   
  
“... tutors mostly. We were surrounded by the smartest people in two galaxies...”  
  
“... ZPMs?”  
  
More eye-rolling. “No, I never had a rabbit...”  
  
“Describe in detail the events...”   
  
“...my sister’s first mission...”  
  
“...our mom, Elizabeth...”  
  
“You flinch every time I mention her.”  
  
“...planet with Ancient ruins...”  
  
“...weren’t really ruins at all.”

  
\--o--

  
“Thank you. That should be all.” Woolsey scribbled some final notes on his pad and clicked off the recorder that had been running for the entire interview. He pushed back his chair and made to leave.   
  
Connor stood up, ignoring the two machine guns that were now pointed at his chest and back. “Mr. Woolsey.”  
  
The man in question paused and turned around, gesturing for the guards to lower their weapons. His face was impassive. “Yes?”   
  
“May I ask something now?”   
  
Woolsey thought a moment. “I suppose that’s fair,” he said, folding his arms and notebook primly in front of him. “Go ahead.”   
  
Connor caught and held the older man’s eyes. “Why won’t you answer any of my questions about my mother?”   
  
The sudden silence was thick enough to swim in. “It’s hardly a conspiracy” said Woolsey finally. “I haven’t answered any of your questions, as this conversation implies. Your sister’s either.”   
  
“But _why_?”  
  
Woolsey lifted his chin at that, seeming to gather up his authority. “Because, Mr. Sheppard – assuming that is in fact your real name – the security of this expedition remains my primary concern. You and your sister walked through my stargate from nowhere not twenty-four hours ago. Do you expect me to instantly trust you and welcome you with open arms?”   
  
Connor shook his head. “There’s more to it than that.” He wasn’t going to let it go this time. “I’m not an idiot, Mr. Woolsey; I saw Dr. Keller start to run the blood-work. You’ve got to know by now that at least part of what we’ve told you is true.” From Woolsey’s expression, Connor could tell he’d been right.   
  
“Look,” he continued, almost pleading, “it’s not like I’m asking for the IDC codes, here. I don’t want to harm this city or anyone in it. But I know my mom, and she wouldn’t ignore a situation like this. So where is she? If she’s off-world, if it’s classified, then fine. I don’t need any details. But please, tell us something, because right now this doesn’t make any sense.”  
   
Woolsey fixed Connor with an unreadable stare for several long seconds. Then he gave an almost imperceptible nod and seemed to deflate. “Very well.” He stepped back towards the interrogation table and set down his things. “Sergeant, please bring in the other prisoner.”  
   
Connor blinked in surprised relief. That had actually worked! He eased himself back into his chair, but as he did so he caught a glimpse of something in Woolsey’s eyes that killed his sense of accomplishment: pity. Why would...? A cold fear suddenly gripped Connor’s heart, setting his stomach churning. _‘Please...’_   he thought desperately. _‘Please no...’_  
   
Several minutes passed before the guard returned with Emily. When she was brought into the room, he started to jump up, but the nod and small smile she gave kept him in his place. When his disturbed look didn’t abate at this reassurance, however, Emily’s brow furrowed in concern and she glanced at Woolsey apprehensively. She slowly moved to the chair that had been placed on Connor’s other side and sat down.   
  
“What’s going on?” she asked him nervously.   
  
“He’s going to tell us why we haven’t seen Mom,” he replied evenly, all the while praying _‘it can’t be that, it can’t be that, it can’t be that...’_ Her eyes snapped towards Woolsey and stayed there, eager for information.  
  
Woolsey cleared his throat uncomfortably. He laid a hand on the back of his chair as if to pull it out and sit down, but seemed to decide against it. Instead, he let his arms rest at his sides and stood up as straight as he could possibly manage, so that he was looking down at the two of  them sitting there.   
  
“I don’t know exactly what is going on here – whether or not you’re from the future as you claim, or whether you come from some alternate reality as Dr. McKay believes – but in light of the recent medical evidence that has been presented to this case, I believe you have a right to be aware of all the facts.” He paused to take a breath, frowning slightly as he looked at each of them in turn. “The Dr. Elizabeth Weir who once commanded this expedition was taken captive by the Replicators nearly two years ago and is now believed to be dead. Dr. Weir gave her life to ensure this city’s safety. It was a terrible loss, one that is still felt deeply to this day.”   
  
He paused again, and the pity Connor had seen became apparent in his voice. “I’m sorry, but that’s why she won’t be coming to see you.” 

  
\--o--   
  
  
_‘He’s lying.’_ Emily repeated the thought to herself like a mantra. _‘He just told us that because he still doesn’t trust us. Mom’s just off-world – maybe on Earth for something... That has to be it, yeah!’_ Each denial was a brick in the wall that kept the numbing sickness at bay, a bit of strength to resist this preposterous story.   
  
The dull clomp of the guard’s and her own footsteps beat against her ears. A few minutes after breaking the news, Woolsey had quietly ordered the guards to take her and Connor back to their cells. Emily hadn’t protested, hadn’t demanded that she be allowed to stay with her brother, as she had fully planned to do. She hadn’t said a single word.   
  
Everything around her was blurry – the corridor through which they walked might as well have been filled with fog for all Emily saw of it. At the moment there was room in her mind for only one wonderful truth: _‘My mother didn’t die. This is the past. This is the past and she never died so she can’t be gone.’_ Emily clung to the idea with all her might. ‘ _She can’t be...’_    
  
The way no one had answered her questions, how even Aunt Jen– Dr. Keller – had avoided her gaze when she’d mentioned Elizabeth after her scan. Woolsey’s shocked voice while they were in the holding cell – _“...Elizabeth Weir? The former leader of this expedition?”_ The things she hadn’t even noticed at first, like how she hadn’t heard anyone suggest contacting Dr. Weir and informing her of the situation. Or the haunted look hidden deep behind her father’s eyes...   
  
Emily’s breath caught. Her heart started beating faster and her head felt fuzzy as tears began to burn behind her eyes. _‘Can’t be... no!’_ The denial started screaming ever faster and she looked around frantically, trying to figure out where she was. There. She recognized the view out that window; they were in the lower northeastern section of the tower. She did some mental calculations; if she could get to a transporter, then it was only two floors up... _‘can’t be, can’t be...’_ All she had to do was give the guard the slip. Easy.    
  
She waited a few more seconds and then stopped dead in her tracks and gasped, gripping her stomach; she didn’t have to fake the distressed look on her face. The guard moved towards her to steady her, but before he could grab her she sank down on one knee as if overcome, moaning as if she were in pain. Panicked, the guard did exactly what Emily had been betting on. He straightened and looked around, calling for help. The few seconds that his eyes were turned away from her were all she needed.   
  
The instant he looked away she was off, shooting down the hallway like a bullet. She heard a yell behind her and the sound of thudding boots. Adrenaline coursing through her veins, she went even faster, skidding on the smooth floors as she turned the corner and sprinted toward the transporter that she knew would be waiting. Still several feet away, she waved her hand in the direction of the control panel and the doors slid open just as she reached them. She launched herself inside, colliding painfully with the back wall, and slammed her fist against the icon she needed on the city map. _‘Come on, come on!’_ The doors were almost closed when her thwarted guard came into view through the narrowing slit. Fury contorting his face, he pointed towards her and marched forwards, but he was too late.   
  
Emily barely had time to lean her head back against the wall and take a deep breath before the doors opened again, revealing a completely different location than the one she had just vacated. There were no windows here, merely strip lights and the standard decorative copper panels. Best of all, no angry guard. No one at all in fact. Even so, Emily didn’t waste any time. She darted out of the transporter, took a moment to orient herself, and ran down the right hand corridor, still high on adrenaline. She could run into someone at any moment, but she didn’t care – didn’t slow down – confident in the knowledge that she probably knew more about the layout of this city than the entire military contingent put together. And she had to get there... she had to know for sure...   
  
Without thinking, she barreled around another corner and up a flight of stairs, right smack into three soldiers. Everyone froze for a moment. One of the soldiers had his hand to the radio at his ear, obviously having just received the news of an escaped prisoner. They stared at her in surprise, only coming to life when she bolted towards the exit beside them.   
  
“Hey!”   
  
More yells followed as she pounded up a second set of stairs. They were right behind her – she could hear them cursing under their breaths. Emily poured as much energy as she could into making herself go faster. At the top of the stairs another corridor stretched out before her, this one relatively short and lined with doorways on either side. She only had a few seconds, but she had one large advantage over her pursuers: they didn’t know where she was going. Without breaking pace, Emily stretched out her hand and waved it over a door panel as she ran past.   
  
Further along, halfway down the hall, there was a gap in the wall that held yet another staircase. She did a ninety-degree left turn so fast that she nearly fell over; her palms slammed against the hard surface of the bottom stair and she scrambled desperately up the steps to the landing, trying to make as little noise as possible and praying that they hadn’t seen her. Shouts echoed through the hallway two seconds later as the soldiers entered it. She strained her ears, trying to hear over the sound of her thrumming pulse and her breaths that came in heavy draws. As close as they were behind her, they should have reached the corridor just as the door she had opened was closing...   
  
“That way!” came a cry. Emily imagined someone pointing. A scuffle of boot-steps – she held her breath as she listened – and they were gone. She sagged back against the wall, eyes closed, her legs splayed out in front of her as she tried to catch her breath. The door the men had just gone through concealed another hallway, one that eventually lead in the direction of the ZPM room – a likely destination for an enemy spy or whatever they thought she was. Believing that someone was about to blow up the city should keep them occupied for a little while.   
  
Still, she couldn’t stop just yet. She pulled herself to her feet using the nearest bit of stair railing and continued upwards. It wasn’t far now.   
  
A few more corridors and a short set of stairs later – which she managed without meeting anyone – Emily finally found herself at her destination. She came to a halt in front of the set of double doors, paneled in beautifully patterned stained glass. Uncertainty and no small amount of fear suddenly flooded through her. The need to get to this place had been driving her through that entire chase, but now that she was actually here... Woolsey’s voice drifted through her head: _‘former leader of this expedition?...now believed to be dead...’_ She opened the door.   
  
The memorial hall was just as beautiful as she remembered. The ceiling soared upwards, the upper half of the walls a band of stained glass windows that let light pour into the circular room in sheets of transparent gold. Even with all the light there were candles everywhere, and small clusters of flowers were gathered underneath each of the framed photographs that lined the walls. Wooden plaques placed beneath the photos commemorated the final deeds of the person above them, and in most cases the space was littered with notes, personal photographs and prayers written on bits of paper and left by friends and colleagues of the deceased.   
  
It was a calm place, and quiet; one that managed to maintain a spirit of warmth and peace despite its tragic purpose. Emily stepped further into the room and the doors closed behind her. Afraid of what she might see, she tried to avoid looking at the pictures on the wall and noticed instead that there was something missing. The low stone monument that usually occupied the space in the center of the room – a large circular plinth carved with the words ‘Heroes of Atlantis’ in Ancient along its rim – wasn’t there. Its absence made sense, Emily supposed. Her mother had commissioned the memorial when Emily was two; as she had been told later, apparently Elizabeth had decided that a more permanent tribute to Atlantis’s fallen was long overdue...   
  
The memory reinforced the reason for Emily’s presence there with a painful nudge. She closed her eyes and inhaled, breathing in the air that smelled of flowers and faint incense. Ignoring the fear that was clawing at her mind, she forced herself to look up. Slowly, she walked along the wall, silently praying that she wouldn’t see what something told her she was going to find. But find it she did, and the sight was like a knife in the gut. There, beneath the largest stained glass window, was a photograph adorned with more flowers than any other. Emily walked towards it, muscles quivering and heart pounding, and stopped.   
  
“Mom...” she breathed, the tears that her escape had suppressed rushing to the surface. The knife gave a twist. Slowly, she reached out a hand and touched the beautiful Athosian-made frame that held the image of a beaming Elizabeth Weir, standing proudly on the gate room staircase. _‘No...’_ whimpered Emily’s thoughts. Her eyes swam and she looked down, gripping the bottom of the frame as she tried to keep from crying. What was it Woolsey had said? Something about Uncle Rodney and alternate realities? Whatever he’d said, right now she couldn’t convince herself that it mattered. Even though this might be a different reality, and this wasn’t her home and this wasn’t _her_ mother, Emily couldn’t banish the burning ache in her core and she couldn’t stop the tears from finally falling.   
  
Arm still outstretched to touch the frame, she stood there, shoulders bowed, shuddering with small sobs. There was a faint noise behind her that she barely registered and then moments later she was folded in a pair of strong arms. “Hey,” said her big brother’s voice, and it was strained, like he was fighting back tears too. With a choking sound, Emily buried her face in his shoulder; the harder she sobbed the tighter Connor held her. “I know,” he whispered thickly, a few wet drops landing on her hair. “I know.” 

  
\--o--

  
John stood silently at the door to the memorial hall, watching as the two children held each other, the golden light from the windows pooling around them, shining dust motes floating through the air like stars in a nebula. After a few moments he couldn’t stand it anymore and looked away, his throat thick.    
  
When the alert had gone out after the girl’s escape, he had been meeting with Woolsey, waiting for the other senior staff members to arrive so they could discuss the findings from Woolsey’s interrogations. John had immediately begun coordinating with Major Lorne to recapture her – she had last been seen heading in the direction of the ZPM room – when the call came in from Connor’s guard. The boy had demanded that he be allowed to help find her, claiming that he knew where she was going. Against John’s advice, Woolsey had allowed it, after a moment of serious consideration in which his brow furrowed even more than usual. Escorted by four guards, Connor had come running straight to the memorial hall and convinced them to let him approach his sister alone. John had arrived just as the boy had gone in. The location had surprised him at first, but it had taken only a moment for John to realize why they were there and he’d mentally cursed. Woolsey hadn’t informed him that he had told the kids about Elizabeth. What in the galaxy had possessed him to do that?  
  
John took a deep breath and steeled himself to look through the open doors once more. The sound of tears drifted towards him. No one in the city had cried like that after Elizabeth had died. He’d seen his share of stiff upper lips and watery eyes in the immediate aftermath, seen in Teyla’s eyes the weight and weariness of yet another loss, but nothing like this naked display of pain, fresh and visceral, uncaring who saw. Sure, she’d only been ‘missing’ at first. Why grieve over someone who’s not dead, after all? But then the weeks and months had slipped by, and by the time the final confirmation had come, Elizabeth had been gone for so long that the news of her death had invoked little more than a moment of silence for the city and a day-long air of solemnity for the personnel who had actually known her. Only John and his team had seemed to be fully cognizant of what the news actually meant, sitting silently around a table in the mess that night – the loss of hope, made all the more cruel by the Elizabeth-that-wasn’t who’d reported it. Yet even then, after a few emotionally charged toasts, life had soon gone on: Rodney distracted by Keller, Teyla preoccupied with her pregnancy and her missing people and Ronon... well, who really knew what Ronon was thinking most of the time? What other choice had there been?   
  
 John turned away from the teenagers and stepped back. He was an intruder on their grief – a grief that was very real, as impossible as it was and as much as John would like to rationalize otherwise. He swiped his hand over the door control panel, closing it, and turned towards the guards. “Give ‘em some time. There’re no other exits; they’re not going anywhere.”   
  
His order confirmed with four sets on nods, John turned and walked away as fast as he could. 


End file.
